


(Un)written Words

by honeybadgerwrath



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-09-21 00:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybadgerwrath/pseuds/honeybadgerwrath
Summary: Prompt: Illya and Gaby (established relationship or new awakening OTP—writer's choice!) are apart for Christmas. How do they cope? How do they keep in touch? What's their reunion like? Angst? Fluff? ¿Por qué no los dos?





	1. Parted - Illya

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueincandescence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueincandescence/gifts).



He writes her a thousand letters without ever putting pen to paper.

A lifetime of winters in Moscow and this is the first time he had really feels the cold of it. The way it comes up through his fingertips and the soles of his shoes. Stepping out onto the street feels like falling into a frozen river – the first stinging touch of the wind on his face the snap of ice, the permeability of his clothes even in layers a bath of cold.

Here behind the Wall the snow does not dance, does not glitter. Does not invite poetry and songs that seduce. It’s a taste of obliteration. It threatens, stealing the moisture from the air until your lips chap and your skin scrapes dry beneath every accidental brush. When it comes at night it swallows the world whole. Erases the horizon during the day, isolating each of the people who struggle through it toward their homes, their jobs, the hope of somewhere out of the worst of it, in a maelstrom of wind and snow and their own shivering bones.

There are too many eyes on him for it to be safe anywhere but in the moments just before sleep to think of her. His superiors may hold a file on each of his partners and sharp words on their tongues for even the suggestion that he might feel anything but cold deliberation toward either. They watch him for the slightest hint of emotion when Oleg pushes. Demands. Interrogates.

But there, on the edge of sleep, Gaby dances at the edges of his thoughts.

He lies back on the unrelenting chill of his narrow bed and wonders whether she is tucked in, warm and flushed from her customary glass of vodka before bed. Does she still wear those ridiculous, oversized pajamas rolled to the elbow and just below the knee? Still sigh just so and reach out for-


	2. Parted - Gaby

She never speaks of the letters she slips, one after another, into the lining of her suitcase. This time, Solo catches her with ink smeared on her fingertips, cursing as the edge of an envelope caught the web between forefinger and thumb and mixed blood with ink on the paper. She thought he might say something then and raised her chin, daring him to speak a word about it but he did nothing of the sort.

Oh, his mouth opens as if to speak but after a moment’s silence falling between them shakes his head and closes his mouth once more.

However fond of the man she is, she doesn’t think she can bear hearing him echo the doubt that lives in her chest the longer he was away. So she had allows him to settle beside her on the bed and carefully, oh so carefully dab away the blood and ink with one of his handkerchiefs.

December is too maudlin a month for the sound of the rain heavy against the windows. This place far too warm for the season. But there’s a relief to be had in changing into something more suitable and slipping her arm into his to make their escape to a smokey club. To the sound of New Orleans jazz and a mission to focus her attention on anything but the absence of a third of them.

_Illya,_ she tells him in her head, composing her next letter already, _You should have heard the sound of that brass-_


	3. Late - Gaby

Her fingers curl into a fist, only the short cut of her nails saving her from a set of red crescents on her palm, she squeezes so tightly.

Waverly’s watching her with eyes too solemn for her to bear. Solo sits at her side without his customary smirk, nothing to say and that? That is almost worse than Waverly’s kindness or his assurances that they _will_ get to the bottom of this.

If only Solo would make some brash comment. Offer her a flirtatious wink he doesn’t half mean. Her stomach could settle.

Illya is more than a week overdue and the KGB isn’t saying anything.

She pushes herself up from her chair, desperate for fresh air and already through the door before either man can speak. Those she passes on her way toward the main doors, as she bursts out onto the gray stoop of the building and catches herself just before she walks right into the rain.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there, staring out at the gray cityscape of London in the rain. Doesn’t even recognize that she’s shivering from the cold until the coat settles around her shoulders and, when she looks up and over to see who has joined her there, finds Solo watching her with his steady blue gaze.

Gaby doesn’t let him wrap an arm around her so much as she simply moves in close enough to let him take the weight of her, leaning into this quiet steadiness when the world has spun out of control. His fingers squeeze her shoulder and where her eyes are so dry it hurts, she would almost rather she did cry. Thinks it would be easier someh-

A throat clears and they turn as once and find their lost Russian standing there not ten feet away.

“You make terrible spies,” he says, voice deep and rough from lack of sleep. One black eye, his left arm in a sling, and a slight limp as he walks toward them, and he looks better than anything she’s seen in her life.

The surprised sound he makes when she throws herself into his arms- well, arm, is more satisfying than she could possibly say. A little pained, a lot out of breath, and a perfect counterpart to Solo’s suggestion that only one of them looks like death warmed over.

And her? Her laugh has ragged edges as she tells him “You’re late.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swore I would keep this one short and sweet and yet...there might just be room yet for a little mid-credits scene. All the cool kids are doing it.


End file.
